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SOCIAL CLASSES: 



AN ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



GENERAL UNION PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



OF 



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DICKINSON COLLEGE 



CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA. 



July 11th, 1849. 



BY 



REV. GEORGE A. COFFEY, A.M. 

A GRADUATE M EMBER. 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 



\> 



PHILADELPHIA: 
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 

1849. 






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SOCIAL CLASSES: 



AN ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



GENERAL UNION PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



OF 



DICKINSON COLLEGE, 



CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA. 



July 11th, 1849. 

H ti ■ fr i 

• c n BY y 



REY. GEORGE A. COFFEY, A.M., 



A GRADUATE MEMBER. 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 






5 PHILADELPHIA: 
T. K. AND P. a. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 

1849. 



.c n 



Dickinson College, July 12th, 1849. 
Rev. G. A. Coffey — 
Dear Sir: We have the honor to express to you the thanks of the 
General Union Philosophical Society for your excellent oration, delivered 
before them last evening, and earnestly to request a copy for publication. 
With great respect, 

Your obedient servants, 

JOHN WILSON, 
J. W. MARSHALL, 
C. C. TIFFANY, 
Stand. Com. of the G. U. P. 8. 



Carlisle, July 12th, 1849. 

Gentlemen: — 

I have received your note of to-day, requesting, on behalf of the 

General Union Philosophical Society, a copy of my address of yesterday 

for publication. As a faithful Union, the approbation of the Society is my 

sufficient reward. Of course, my speech is at their disposal. 

Your most obedient servant, 

GEO. A. COFFEY. 
Jno. Wilson, J. W. Marshall, C. C. Tiffany, 

Stand. Com. G. U. P. S. 



SOCIAL CLASSES. 



Fellow Members 

of the General Union Philosophical Society : — 

We are gathered here from successive college classes, 
and years, and generations. The past and the future 
concentrate in this hour. The occasion awakens, at 
once, memory and hope. Some of you are about to 
exchange the retreats sacred to study for the jostling 
world; to step from the gymnasium into the arena. 
You are eagerly looking forward. Hope, that most skill- 
ful artist of the ideal, composes a future for you more 
glowing than the figures of Titian, and sunnier than the 
landscapes of Claude. You fancy yourselves plumed to 
soar like the falcon when the leash is slipped. Heaven 
grant that you may realize your hopes ; if not the very 
matter of them, at least their equivalent ! 

But some of us indulge more pensive feelings. When, 
after years of absence, we revisit this Eden of a valley, 
and this Carlisle, a very Damascus in its beauty of place, 
and linger amid yonder college halls and grounds, the 
scene of so many studious toils, and merry rambles, of 
so much enthusiasm and improvement, intervening time 
disappears; memory enlivens into reality; and old 
joys and loves come back, like the spirits of the de- 



6 

parted, to a mourner, in sweet dreams. Those happy 
college days ! As they recede they brighten. 

And, because some of us, brother Unions, are now, for 
the first time, with you in general meeting, by an ob- 
vious association we revert to the past fortunes, and 
the original institution of our society. Our fraternity is 
not antediluvian or medieval, but it is sixty years old. 
And, in this age of steam and telegraphs, of three-day 
revolutions, and ten-day voyages to Europe, sixty years 
are something. In that time, we have favored the world 
with a fair assortment of lawyers, physicians, ministers, 
warriors, congressmen, governors, ambassadors, secre- 
taries, and an occasional specimen of the author and 
poet. But, although we have not made much of a noise, 
yet the outside world has made a great deal. The last 
sixty years have been the most changeful, crowded, start- 
ling, and picturesque period of history. Our society was 
instituted in 1789. In that year, the American Involu- 
tion was consolidated by the definitive adoption of the 
Federal Constitution. In that year, the Republic began 
her positive career. She was independent and organized, 
but inexperienced, in debt, sparsely populated, and alone 
in the forest. Since then, the thirteen States have 
spread into thirty, the three millions of people into 
twenty-two millions ; the boundary that lay east of the 
Mississippi runs far along the Pacific Ocean, and the 
vast area of prairie, river, and forest, then relieved only 
by the whoop of the Indian, and the smoke of the emi- 
grant's cabin, is now alive with civilization. The colo- 
nies, whose gallant bearing only attracted the sympathies 
of a few Pulaskis and Lafayettes, and whose successful 
revolt won a careless and incidental recognition from 
the kings of Europe, have grown into a gigantic nation, 
that throws its bright shadow all over this western con- 



tinent, and is become a fountain of ideas, and a model 
of progress to the old world. In the year 1789, began 
the French Revolution. In that year, Marie Antoinette 
glittered at Versailles, and Napoleon was a school-boy. 
In that year, the States-General met, Mirabeau thun- 
dered, and the Bastile was demolished. Since then, 
what events ! The Reign of Terror, the roar of Austerlitz, 
the Emperor and his Marshals, the Iron Duke, and 
Waterloo, follow each other, the wonders and heroes of 
a Titanic tragedy. And now, after thirty years of com- 
parative quiet, interrupted only by such incomplete in- 
cidents as the Barricades of 1830, and the hapless insur- 
rection in Poland, revolution has burst forth again, and 
sweeps like a blinding gale over central Europe. The 
people have risen in great wrath. Thrones are encir- 
cling themselves with cannon. Presently, the billowy 
surface of events will be covered with the wrecks of 
ancient institutions. Everywhere insurrection is de- 
stroying the old, constituent assemblies are modeling 
the new, and cabinets are plotting reaction. Italy spas- 
modically struggles against crowns and popes. Germany 
is reducing her science and speculation to practice ; but 
her sovereigns oppose ; and the result is a very chaos of 
barricades, constitutions, sieges, and concessions. France, 
though a republic in form, seems menaced by monarchists 
and communists alike. Revolutionary in her existence, 
yet, with a Gallic consistency, she ignores revolution 
elsewhere. Like a bright planet in a cloudy sky, the 
Hungarian Magyars, the chivalry of Protestantism, are 
vindicating the renown and the franchises of a thousand 
years, and their victorious swords are flashing defiance 
alike at routed Austria and invading Russia. On the 

* Alas ! that planet is now in occultation. 



8 

track of revolution marches war. The Cossacks begin 
to advance from the East. French armies will, ere long, 
concentrate on the Alps and the Ehine. It is to be 
feared that Europe will again become a camp and a 
battle-field. 

The Conservative and Eomanticist will attribute these 
confusions to an over-speculative philosophy, and an 
infidel theology. The Liberalist hails them as the rough 
steps of progress. The Democrat exults in them as 
inaugurating the sovereignty of the people. The Phi- 
losopher analyzes them as the outward issue of that con- 
flict of opinion, which increases from controversy to 
partisanship, and thence to arms. The Historian will 
treat 1848 and '49 as in connected tissue with the 
days of July, the rout of Waterloo, the Kevolution of 
1789, and the oppressions of the middle ages. All 
these theories are, in some of their aspects, true. Hu- 
manity is in progress. That progress involves many 
innovations; so that, on the one hand, it interferes with 
the preconceptions of the vassals of tradition, and with 
such interests as depend on the present status ; and, on 
the other hand, it may be hurried, or misguided by the 
enthusiasts, who mistake logical abstractions for prac- 
tical wisdom. Hence, human progress may be either 
directly opposed, or else brought into accidental conflict 
with other necessities; and, therefore, it is sometimes 
unsteady, stormy, and bloody. But though the course 
of events marches over thrones and barricades alike, and 
disappoints both legitimists and socialists, yet it is on- 
ward and upward. 

The present era is the struggle of society to classify 
itself more naturally. Artificial divisions are crumbling, 
or rending to pieces. The social orders are rushing into 
a collision that centuries have been engendering. Amid 



9 

the crash of revolution and the clang of arms, can be dis- 
tinguished the remonstrances of stripped Nobilities, the 
forebodings of the timid u Bourgeoisie," and the wail of 
insurgent Operatives. The question is between privilege, 
property, and right. But, although the classes of so- 
ciety will be rearranged, they cannot be done away. All 
nature is a vast contexture of class embracing class. 
Genus and species are necessary forms of thought. 
There are orders in the angelic world. Although men 
are the same in essence, and equal as to rights, yet they 
are unequal in physical endowments, talents, and cha- 
racter. Now there is a universal law of moral gravita- 
tion. Like attracts like. Therefore, the verv same ten- 
dencies that organize society will dispose it into classes. 
These classes, are only different but alike necessary 
developments, of the same uniting principle whence 
spring families, nations, and churches. The learned and 
intellectual, the rich and high-born, the fashionable and 
polished, the pious and benevolent, the ignorant and 
rude, the trifling and vicious, because they are unlike 
in fact and nature, will, therefore, in a community that 
is naturally organized, always be distinct socially. We 
need not term them higher or lower ranks. Such terms 
only embarrass the subject by introducing irrelevant 
ideas. It is better to speak of various classes, or, if the 
Fourierites will allow, groups or series. Any of these 
divisions is first in some respects, and inferior in others, 
according as the standard of comparison is money, 
birth, manners, mind, or virtue. The Conservative mis- 
takes, not in insisting that there always will be social 
grades, but in taking for granted that they need arti- 
ficial aid. The Socialist is right when he would level 
prescriptive inequalities ; it is well to destroy all classes 
created by law or arbitrary usage. But he forgets that 
2 



10 

society will spontaneously classify itself by the elective 
affinities of its individuals. Indeed, it is possible that 
classes may be constituted somewhat artificially, and yet 
the people may be free. Great Britain is the most aris- 
tocratic nation in Europe. Yet nowhere is there more 
civil liberty. A lord may cut a commoner's acquaintance, 
but he touches his house or person at his own peril. 
A peasant's vote goes as far as a duke's. The French 
are for ever chattering about equality, but their liberty 
is rather a farce. 

But society is in its most normal and efficient condi- 
tion, when its classes, without any tinkering of law, 
form, improve, dissolve, and re-arrange by the free work- 
ing of nature, and when every man's place in the scale 
depends on his own talents and industry. This principle 
of classification explains at once our own tranquil pros- 
perity, and the convulsions in Europe. When a state 
usurps nature's office, and tries its own expedients of 
privilege, monopoly, title, primogeniture, and ceremony, 
intestine animosities will be fomented, and as soon as the 
galled and impoverished orders grow strong and intelli- 
gent, revolution ensues, with its reactions and wars, until 
society subsides into a natural condition. 

Were men perfect, they would group themselves ac- 
cording to personal and intrinsic distinctions, such as 
knowledge or goodness. But we are so governed by the 
objective, that social classes have ever been formed by 
an extrinsic and tangible standard, which is property. 
And, accordingly, without regarding other or minor divi- 
sions, every civilized people may be comprehended under 
three classes. 

The first class, called the aristocratic, embraces those 
who are maintained by their possessions, and who, being 
rich, can live in style without labor. In most ages and 



11 

countries, this class have enjoyed exclusive and heredit- 
ary privileges. They were the Patricians of Home, and 
the Barons of the middle ages; they are the Brahmins 
and Kajahs of the East, and the Peers of modern Eu- 
rope. In our own country, as it will be in all others, by 
the progress of civilization, there is no monopoly of po- 
litical privilege, and no external badge of aristocracy. 

The second class, called the middle, is composed of 
those who are at all dependent on their own exertions. 
As without labor, either manual or intellectual, they will 
want, so by labor they are afforded competence, and often 
independence. Here belong our farmers, and mechanics, 
and merchants, and learned professions. This class ex- 
hibits the most opposite varieties of pursuit, character, 
and life; it claims rich and poor, gentle and simple, 
polished and rude. Its extremities are so wide apart, 
that, in modern times, they blend gradually with the 
classes lying above and below. 

The third class, which might be called the pauper, 
comprises those whose labor does not support them, and 
who are, therefore, dependent on others. Such are the 
" proletaires" and "lazzaroni" of European cities, the 
serfs of Russia and other Sclavonic countries, a large 
part of the peasantry of Ireland, the slaves and most 
free negroes of our Union, and, indeed, all those unfor- 
tunates that drag through life in alleys, and cellars, 
and fill our courts, and prisons, and almshouses. This 
class is recruited partly by indolence and vice, and largely 
by the culpable negligence of society. 

If the first of these classes be the gilded ornament of 
society, and the last its deformity and sore, the middle 
one is its strength and its hope. For the condition of 
the middle classes, much more than that of the others, 
is favorable to developing all the energies, and thereby 



12 

all the excellences of human nature. Labor is the con- 
dition of all progress, whether material, intellectual, or 
moral, whether individual or social. 

Now, the first class is raised above the necessity of 
laboring. Hence, aristocracies are so indolent that they 
achieve very little in business, government, the church, 
literature, or science. Except as they are dragged along 
by the advance of the other classes, they stagnate in their 
saloons, carriages, and opera boxes. And then wealth 
and rank afford the means, and thereby the temptation, 
to unlawful indulgence. They raise men above the re- 
straints of public opinion. They enable men to throw 
such beauty around sin, as will recommend it to con- 
sciences lulled or seeking for pretexts. True, high life 
now is more decorous and virtuous than formerly. But 
this is because advancing civilization equalizes society, 
and so intermingles its different classes, that the middle 
one, in return for the elegance that it shares more and 
more with high life, bestows on the latter an exotic vigor. 
Aristocracies are polished in manner and refined in taste, 
frequently they are brave and generous, but it is their 
characteristic spirit to hold labor to be vulgar, to prefer 
the past to the present, and display to solidity. 

On the other hand, the pauper class are too depressed 
or too bad for labor. The State gives them no chances 
of rising, or, if any, they will throw them away. Con- 
sequently, they have no hope; and despair makes no 
effort. They are both idle and improvident. Neglected 
by society, because it acts too exclusively on the com- 
petitive, "laissez faire" principle, they grow up in gross 
ignorance. Accustomed only to vicious associations, 
their very friends and homes make them worse. In the 
very centres of European and Anglo-Saxon enlighten- 
ment, are thousands of forlorn creatures whose only 



13 

sensibility is wretchedness; whose only solace is the 
excitement of sin, or the callousness of long suffering; 
who are industrious only in beggary and law breaking ; 
who know nothing of society but its neglects, its evils, 
and its punishments ; whose homes are the street, the 
grogshop, or the hospital ; whose whole life is like a cold, 
rainy day. The existence of such a class indicates not 
only personal depravity, but that the social body is or- 
ganized imperfectly. Their increase would portend social 
decay. The first duty of society, is, to these, at once its 
dread, its shame, and its problem. We waste millions 
on armies, powder, and epaulettes ; it were better to use 
our millions in teaching and Christianizing the poor, in 
giving them, not enervating largesses, but the motives, 
means, and rewards of industry. 

There are some curious coincidences between the pau- 
per and aristocratic classes. The one never exists with- 
out the other. Palaces and hovels are commonly in 
juxtaposition. Wherever there are lords, beggars jostle 
them in the streets. The lowest class are the most ob- 
sequious to aristocracy, because it dazzles the eye, and 
scatters crumbs under its table. And aristocracy, in 
return, does a great deal to fill up the ranks of pauper- 
ism. In times of jar and disorganization, the first and 
third classes have sometimes joined in a motley alliance 
against the second; rags and velvets against the toil that 
weaves them both. Aristocracy and "pauperism increase 
together, until, having absorbed every other class, and 
standing unsupported like pillars in a desert, they both 
tumble into ruin; or decrease together, until both are 
swallowed in an Icarian equality. 

But now the middle class, while it is under the neces- 
sity of laboring, has also chances and prospects. Hence, 
it engrosses nearly all the industry of a nation. It 



14 

boasts the brawny, stalwart men that fell the forest, sow 
the seed, speed the plough, and gather the harvest; that 
robe our plains in verdure, and festoon our hills with 
vines; that drag from the mines that servant of all 
work, the iron, and the black diamonds that blaze in our 
grates; that steer our ships to every harbor, float our 
thirty-starred flag in every breeze, and pour into our 
laps the luxuries of every clime ; that wield the ham- 
mers and saws, and make our towns ring with the cheer- 
ful noises of mechanic handicraft ; that drive the facto- 
ries, and ply the yardstick, and load the counter with 
the triumphs of industrial art; that discover new chan- 
nels of commerce, invent new machinery and processes 
for facilitating production, and augment capital by new 
investments ; that furnish the houses we live in, and the 
clothes we wear, and the victuals we eat, and the roads 
we travel. The steamboat and the locomotive, the 
cotton-gin and the power-loom, the telegraph that har- 
nesses the lightning, and the daguerreotype that impri- 
sons the light, are proofs of the buoyant and manifold 
energies of the popular classes. 

And, for like reasons, these classes do far the most in 
enlarging science, perfecting art, and speeding the pro- 
gress of thought. If not the Maecenases and Medicis, 
they are the intellectual workers. From them have 
sprung the geniuses, the lords of mind, the great think- 
ers, the vastly learned, the master artists, the magnates 
of the republic of letters. The Homers and Shakspeares 
of poetry ; the Lockes, Coleridges, and Kants of philoso- 
phy; the Newtons, and Hunters, and Davys of science; 
the Luthers, and Butlers, and Barrows of theology ; the 
Angelos, and Kaphaels, and Rubenses of art; the Peels, 
and Guizots, and Clays, and Websters of statesmanship; 
the Eldons and Storys of law ; the Crom wells, Napoleons, 



15 

and Washingtons of the field and cabinet alike ; — although 
these are nature's nobility and the aristocracy of intel- 
lect, they were originally but commoners in the State. 
The great body of the votaries of knowledge, the theo- 
rists, projectors, discoverers, and inventors; the intel- 
lectual file leaders, the teachers that drudge in our 
schoolhouses, the professors in our colleges, the editors, 
reviewers, and authors; the brain-coiners that keep up 
the sparkling array of newspapers, magazines, and books ; 
that create new views of truth, ideals of beauty, and 
stirring thoughts for common mankind; the lawyers, 
that administer justice, and the divines that expound 
religion ; the popular leaders, that, by the prerogative of 
eloquence and foresight, make our speeches, and frame 
our laws, and shape our policy, and marshal our armies, 
and forge out the facts that make history, — such men 
are not reared in marble halls ; they do not trace lordly 
lineages; they are the children of the people, and must 
needs, at least in earlier life, alloy their empyrean gifts 
with the vulgarity of caring for bread and butter. And 
the aggregate thought and conscience of the people, is 
that potent public opinion which armies dare not resist, 
of which kings are vassals, and governments the organ. 
The middle class cannot command all the means and 
charms of sin. They are in the centre of the influences 
of public opinion. They have characters and opportu- 
nities to lose. The home, with its firesides and loves, 
is their characteristic abode. Consequently, it is they 
chiefly, that honor and cherish such homely virtues as 
* conjugal fidelity, filial affection, honesty, and friendship. 
And they are proportionately the most liberal ; for mod- 
erate competency is near enough to want to feel for it, 
and to be often asked by it. Their prosperity is mutu- 
ally intertwined with that of their country ; and accord- 



16 

ingly, their patriotism enshrines country as the cynosure 
of all glorious reminiscences, yields a trusty allegiance 
to its sovereignty, rallies at its minute call, and dies in 
its defence. Often, when nobility has danced servile 
attendance on the invader, the commons, by their uncal- 
culating persistence, have redeemed the soil. Indeed, 
as long as they stand steady, there never can be success- 
ful invasion or successful rebellion. And they are the 
natural support of rational religion. Their common 
sense corrects extravagance; their independence resists 
the undue domination of creeds and clergy; and their 
ingrained sense of right keeps up the standard of Chris- 
tian morals. A class, at once the most industrious, intel- 
ligent, and religious, must be the happiest. In the golden 
medium of the social state, one is in a natural position ; 
not griped by poverty, manacled by etiquette, or petrified 
by grandeur. His staid simplicity may be less imposing 
than the parade of high life, and more monotonous than 
the pathetic adventures of low life, but he dwells by the 
very sources of happiness — home, nature, and freedom. 

From all this it appears that, in proportion to the cha- 
racter, and extent, and power of the middle classes, will 
be a nation's prosperity. One made up only of an aris- 
tocracy and its destitute dependents, would be a mon- 
strous anomaly; all head and limbs without a body. 
Such a patchwork of jewels and tatters would either 
fall to pieces by its own weight, or be blown into dust by 
the first rude puff of war. But the middle class is the 
very core of a nation's life ; it is at once the soul and the 
body ; the brains, the heart, the blood, and the hands. It 
is the framework of the building; aristocracy is but the 
entablature, pauperism the rubbish about the founda- 
tion. The growth of this central order is, therefore, the 
growth of the entire state in freedom, plenty, power, and 



17 

happiness. When all other classes are so lost in this 
one that wealth is pretty equally distributed, all pur- 
suits held in the same esteem, and property neither 
monopolized by or withheld from any portion of the 
community, that community will have approached per- 
fection. There would be a true equality; for, although 
there would be various modes of life, yet all would have 
equal chances to labor, and to be paid for it. Many 
would be rich, but the very richest class would be so 
small, and its members would be so continually coming 
from, and returning to, and related with all the rest, that 
men would rank not so much by outward circumstance, 
as by real merit. Thus, there would be no invidious 
distinctions ; for the rich would only be first in one re- 
spect, among equals or superiors in other respects. Some 
would be poor enough ; but, instead of being disdained or 
neglected, they would be treated as brethren whose for- 
tunes must be retrieved, or whose helplessness must be 
assisted. And the predominance of the middle class is 
the enfranchisement of all. For the all-embracing class 
would be too mighty to be ruled except as they chose, 
and too numerous to allow any monopoly of advantages. 
And even the poorest, being always connected by busi- 
ness and relationship with the body of the people, would 
be sure to participate in the common liberty. And 
where all are equal and free, mutual ties and common 
interests will produce reciprocity and fraternity. In 
war, a people thus free, equal, and brotherly, would form 
armies obedient indeed to discipline, because a sponta- 
neous loyalty is most faithful, and yet they would be 
instinct with one life, like organic bodies; they would 
be intelligent and enthusiastic, and therefore invincible. 
Such armies have given to fame the fields of Sempach, 
and Morgarten, and Marengo, and Bunker Hill, and 
3 



18 

Saratoga, and Lundy's Lane, and New Orleans, and 
Buena Yista. Such a people, whether they range the 
sands of Arabia, the mountains of Switzerland, the plains 
of Hungary, or the valleys of North America, may be 
defeated, but never conquered. 

And this gigantic preponderance of the middle classes 
would produce the highest material prosperity. Not 
only the necessity for laboring, but the equal opportuni- 
ties, the unrestrained flow and abundance of the rewards 
of labor, would stimulate competition. Every one would 
be a worker in mind or body. Efforts would be directed 
to every promising end. Every faculty of man would 
be developed. Every material thing would be trans- 
muted into an instrument of progress. Fire, earth, air, 
and water, would be explored, and made prolific in trea- 
sure, convenience, knowledge, and beauty. Every acre 
would be cultivated, every river navigated, every moun- 
tain delved; every mechanical art would be plied to 
maturity; manufactures would be at once exquisite and 
cheap; commerce would clothe all in purple and feed 
them with spices; cities would stretch their swarming 
streets, and raise their mansions, along every freighted 
water, and the land would be thronged with embowered 
villages, and a teeming population. 

Corresponding to all this, there would be a vast intel- 
lectual activity. Education would be cheap and univer- 
sal. The freedom of mind would evolve all its powers. 
Schoolhouses would stand at every street corner, and at 
every road crossing. Periodicals and books would load 
every table. Universities, lyceums, and learned societies 
would engage not only the years of youth, but the leisure 
of all. Literature would be natural, national, varied, 
and powerful. Science would extend its researches to 
all the secrets of nature. Although aristocracies have 



19 

munificently patronized genius, yet, because the tastes of 
middle life are unsophisticated, they are true, and there- 
fore genius would have an ample field for its massive 
proportions. The grandeurs of architecture would be 
receptacles for masterpieces of art. Religion, if not 
established, would yet be national. Differences of opin- 
ion would repress fanaticism, and put life into formalism. 
Public virtues would be unalloyed with public crimes. 
Simplicity, order, benevolence, and patriotism, would 
combine and expand into a national character. 

All this may seem a highly colored picture. It never 
has been realized yet. And the imperfections of actual 
life may always keep the reality below the description. 
But the law of national grandeur just elucidated is con- 
firmed by all history. As the plebeians gradually achieved 
privileges and consideration, and attempered patrician 
arrogance and softness with their iron independence and 
vigor, Rome grew to be mistress of the world. At her 
fall, her lands had been engrossed by rich proprietors, 
and were worked by slaves. Poland was inhabited only 
by nobles and serfs, and hence she was easily dismem- 
bered. In Ireland, out of a population of eight millions, 
only a few thousands own the land, and more than three 
millions are starving. Hence, in that loved and blasted 
isle, treason to the Saxon is nothing but allegiance to 
God. In France, the Revolution of 1789 divided pro- 
perty minutely . Hence the phenomena of 1848-9. Her 
National Guard steady the progress of a barricade revo- 
lution, so that it is quite orderly and bloodless. Her 
" bourgeoisie" control the elections, and show that radical 
transformations may take place without war. England 
has always been more or less free, because her Saxon 
knights, and burgesses, and franklins, and yeomanry 
were always strong and self-respecting. The decrease 



20 

of her small freeholders is the darkest presage in her 
complicated condition. 

The United States are little more than a large middle 
class. The privilege of one is that of all. The office- 
holders dare be nothing but your humble servant. They 
never let the public catch them taking airs. The edu- 
cated and virtuous are too scattered among different sects, 
parties, pursuits, and States, to be exclusive in their in- 
tercourse, or to unite on any symbols of superiority. In- 
deed, an aristocracy consisting only or mainly of the best 
and wisest, is but a speculation of philosophy, or a poetic 
fantasy. And few Americans can climb high on a gene- 
alogical tree. It will do for a Percy or a Plantagenet, 
a Montmorenci or a Bourbon, a Braganza or a Hapsburg, 
to make much of his ancestry; because it is from five 
hundred to a thousand years old, and then he has not 
much else to boast of. But should any of us yesterday 
Occidentals, blurt his pedigree at St. James, or Schcen- 
brunn, or the Escurial, the grandees and heralds there 
would soon take the starch out of his republican preten- 
sions. And although many of us roll pills, or concoct 
pleas, or measure calicoes and sugars, yet only a shallow 
brain would regard these occupations as more respectable 
than any harder use of the fingers given us by the Me- 
chanic of the universe. There are a few, however, who 
assume the exclusive, by putting the long purse in the 
place of education, rank, and polish. This is the " Upper 
Tendom" that reposes itself on cotton bales, tons of iron, 
and barrels of pork; its genealogy is a ledger or a cash- 
book; its escutcheon is a bank note. These barons of the 
dollar are reduced to commonalty not by bills of attain- 
der, but by the "insolvent act." But although we have 
no aristocracy in the common sense, yet there are social 
eminences. Many reach high positions by their energy 



21 

and worth ; many unite renown and modesty, wealth and 
goodness, industry and elegance. And yet there is a 
microscopic sanctimoniousness, and an obtrusive "sans- 
culottism," that would destroy social varieties, and crib 
life within their own bald conceptions and five-penny-bit 
expenditure. But away with that hyperborean rigidness 
which would freeze up the freshness and flowers of life, 
and pluck the feathers from the angels' wings. Nature 
is made of roses as well as of cabbages, emeralds as well 
as pebbles. Beauty tinges the sky, variegates the earth, 
and beams from the face; fragrance breathes in the air; 
music floats on the wind, murmurs in the waters, and 
rustles in the leaves. God has made the ornamental as 
well as the useful, the brilliant as well as the solid. He 
has, accordingly, gifted us not only with physical and 
moral, but with aesthetic faculties. If the former two 
have the first claim, yet, when money is plenty, let it be 
largely used to improve the latter. We ought to culti- 
vate not only virtue, but manners ; not only conscience, 
but taste ; not only knowledge, but sensibility. The fine 
arts and their pleasures; the polish of exalted inter- 
course; the exquisiteness of a complex civilization, that 
grace of life which, though sometimes perverted to set 
off vice, is yet the natural ally of virtue; these are 
at once proofs and means of progress ; by attracting all 
upwardly, they increase equality; they idealize demo- 
cracy. 

But while aristocracy is rare with us, so is pauperism. 
The most of this is the refuse of European immigration. 
We are quite strangers to social extremes. Coronets, 
coats of arms, and liveries are swept to the moths 
with other feudal absurdities. The only titles are "sir 
" mister," "squire," "captain," or "general." The only 
sovereign is the voter. The only sceptre is a ballot or a 



7 7 



22 

pen. The only throne is an editor's chair, or the stump. 
And, alas ! for the bathos of the fact, the only test of 
manhood is a — white skin. Every family has its poor 
and rich relations or associates. The children of the 
millionaire may have to dig coal for a living. And the 
ragged boy that paddles in the gutters to-day, may, in 
a few years, be the leading politician, the most extensive 
manufacturer, or the President of the Union. The elec- 
tion day is the very sabbath of equality. In a word, 
the middle class not only rules all, but is all. 

Hence it is, that we are so unparalleled in prosperity. 
Hence it is, that a government, not so much of force as 
of suasion, maintains infinitely better order than the 
grenadiers of Prussia, the cannon of Radetski, and the 
Cossacks of Nicholas. Hence it is, that we already 
imitate the military glories of France, rival the naval 
prowess of Britain, and exceed the conquests of Rome. 
Hence it is, that the tides of Anglo-Saxon energy and 
freedom are pouring all over the continent, and the Mis- 
sissippi valley is blooming to be the garden of the world. 
Hence it is, that the " Universal Yankee Nation" is ex- 
ploring the gorges of the Rocky Mountains, the rivers 
of Oregon, and the mines of California ; and, from the 
shores of the Pacific, confronts and startles the slumber- 
ing civilization of Asia. Hence it is, that our progress 
is upward as the eagle, rapid as steam, beneficent as the 
sunshine, and majestic as the march of " an army with 
banners." Some one says, This is a great country, if it 
were only fenced in ! Why, it will be fenced very soon, 
by the roar of the Atlantic, the wastes of the Pacific, the 
snows that hide the North Pole, and a railroad across 
the Isthmus of Panama! 

The embryo formation of the middle classes was the 
birth of modern time. Their increase and improvement 



23 

is the progress itself of modern civilization. Their as- 
cendency distinguishes the nineteenth century. The 
merchants of the Italian republics, the burghers of the 
Hanse towns and Imperial cities, the guilds and com- 
mons of England, first undermined feudalism. And for 
some centuries past, the trading, farming, mechanic, and 
learned orders, have been steadily gaining on royalty, 
nobility, and hierarchy; so that these are straitly be- 
sieged by public opinion, and are now fighting for sheer 
existence. But though kings may combine, ministries 
contrive, parties counter-check, and legislatures disap- 
point; though ultraists may retard what they would 
hasten ; though the blood of insurgents may redden the 
streets of Paris, the hills of Rome, the squares of Berlin, 
the shores of the Danube, and the valleys of the Rhine ; 
though time be bewildered in a labyrinth of revolutions, 
reactions, diplomacy, and wars, — still, Hope is the true 
philosophy. Ideas will vanquish armies. The musty in- 
stitutions based only on tradition will be packed into the 
wareroom of the antiquary, and be succeeded by living 
forms. And when the one and the few are lost in the 
many, so that civilization has been rejpublicanized, then 
the pauper and debased classes will loom on the world's 
attention. They begin to do so now. And when society 
feels that it is not fraternal enough; when, as God's 
vicegerent, it finds work for all, and bread for all that 
will work ; trains the children of the poorest ; tends the 
disabled, and reclaims the vicious ; then will republicanism 
be elevated to social democracy. Then will civilization 
work its most momentous problems to an affirmative 
issue. Then will history tell of what time has con- 
structed. Then will philosophy and life coincide, and 
reality be grander than poetic visions. Then will reli- 
gion be the soul of society, and society the thousand- 



24 

fold expression of religion. Then will all classes, all 
opinions, all occupations, and all characters, like sound 
members of a healthy body, be assimilated into one or- 
ganic, free, equal, and fraternal commonwealth. 



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